


you can fight the hurricane

by folignos



Category: Generation Kill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-24 10:15:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/938769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/folignos/pseuds/folignos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Used to be that the Ficks were the best Jaeger pilots in the business, a mother and son team who'd piloted all three generations of Jaeger, who had the highest kill count of any Jaeger team ever, who were the closest thing Jaeger pilots had to celebrities. Brad would never, never admit it to anyone, but watching the Ficks was at least eighty percent of the reason he signed up for the Jaeger program; the other twenty percent being Ray leaving subtle hints lying around the apartment they share. Like application forms for the program with post-its saying 'BRADLEY' on the front stapled to his bedroom door, half of them already filled in." Pacific Rim AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can fight the hurricane

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my god this monster is finally finished. This was supposed to be like 3k. Just so y'all know. Thanks to Cat and Garance for putting up with lots of shouting about plot and character and all that jazz.  
> Apologies if the formatting is screwy, I wrote it almost completely on an iPad, so. Ditto for typos  
> Title from Pacific Rim.

Wright: You're one of the most famous Jaeger pilots in the world. How do you deal with that on a day to day basis? 

Fick: I don't really think about it, if I'm honest. It's not about being famous. Maybe for other people. Not me though.

Wright: What is it about then, for you?

Fick: Saving the world? [grin]

Wright: Is that why you came back?

[no answer]

- 

Used to be that the Ficks were the best Jaeger pilots in the business, a mother and son team who'd piloted all three generations of Jaeger, who had the highest kill count of any Jaeger team ever, who were the closest thing Jaeger pilots had to celebrities. Brad would never, _never_  admit it to anyone, but watching the Ficks was at least eighty percent of the reason he signed up for the Jaeger program; the other twenty percent being Ray leaving subtle hints lying around the apartment they share. Like application forms for the program with post-its saying 'BRADLEY' on the front stapled to his bedroom door, half of them already filled in. 

'What makes you think,' he says one day, through a mouthful of cereal, 'that if I did sign up for the Jaeger program, I'd want to co-pilot with you?' He swallows, takes another spoonful. 'And what if we weren't drift compatible, even if we both managed to get into the program?' Ray starts laughing and doesn't stop, and eventually Brad throws his cereal bowl in the sink and leaves. On the phone to his mother later, he tells her about the conversation. She laughs too, so much that he can hear her gasping about not being able to breathe.

Eventually, he gets the joke, and fills out the forms the day before San Diego is attacked by a category three. 

\--

Wright: So, why'd you sign up for the Jaeger program?

Espera: My little girl loves the beach. I want her to be able to visit it safely again one day.

Wright: Really? 

Espera: Yeah. Simple as that, dawg. What, you were expecting something else?

Wright: What about you guys?

Garza: I just wanted to punch giant lizard aliens in the face.

Lilley: Yeah, man. And Assassin Sierra. Who didn't want to be the Ficks at some point, right?

Garza: Fuckin' A, man. The Ficks were gods.

-

Brad is accepted to the Jaeger program. This isn't surprising, after eight years of military school and a more than casual interest in the Marines he's in near perfect shape. Ray though, Ray is small and skinny and smokes a pack a day plus whatever cheap weed he can score. Brad never thought they'd accept him but he sticks by his side when they do, and they test together, train together, and their first neural handshakes are with each other.

It's terrifying, Brad discovers. Drifting, he means. The feeling of the neural handshake is jolting, but he can handle it. It's the bit afterward that scares him, free falling into Ray's head. He watches memories of them as kids fighting over toys, later fighting over girls. He sees Ray's mom making them dinner while they perch on the too tall bar stools in Ray's kitchen. 

He sees Ray's father, just for a second, and then everything goes fuzzy and white, and he blinks, registers that Ray's screaming. The connection shatters, and Brad realises he's on his knees. He's at Ray's side immediately. They're both breathing heavily, but Ray's grinning, lopsided and faint, but there's definitely a smile on his face, and Brad starts to smile too, despite himself. He helps Ray to his feet, and just as the medic reaches them, a gruff guy with a bandana and a moustache, Ray shrugs off Brad's hand and says 'That fucking _rocked_ , homes. When do we get to do it again?'

The medic snorts, shines a torch in Ray's eye and hands Brad a pad of gauze. Brad's suddenly aware of a warm trickle down his face. 'When we've made sure that your buddy isn't bleeding from his brain.' He turns to eyeball Brad, who's holding the gauze to his face and pinching the bridge of his nose, and says 'if you are bleeding from your brain, I have a fucking metric ton of paperwork to fill out, and then I'll be really pissed off.' 

Brad likes to think his nose stops bleeding from sheer willpower alone.

Later they have to talk to the shatterdome Marshal, a mild mannered old ex Ranger called Wynn. For reasons indiscernible to Brad, Wynn takes a liking to Ray, and somehow gets talked into letting them drift together again the next day. 

This time, the memories feel more careful. There's Ray's first girlfriend, his first boyfriend, Christmas at his grandmother's house the year before his grandfather died, and then suddenly the world shifts on its axis. 'Is this it?' Ray asks, slightly breathless. The blood is pounding in Brad's ears. 'Are we drifting?' Ray continues, and Brad closes his eyes, reaches out and grips Ray's hand, and listens to the hum in his head that means the handshake took, that they're connected. 

'Yeah,' he says, and he's laughing a little, breathless just like Ray. 'We're drifting.'

- 

Wright: What's it like? Drifting? They offered to let me try it, but...

Colbert: It's like flying.

-

When they get disconnected, they're both grinning, still high from the thinner oxygen in the sim tanks, and from the handshake, and they hug. Ray stands on his tiptoes and presses a kiss to Brad's lips, soft and dry and he pulls away like he's been shot, lips slightly parted as he looks at Brad, horrified. Brad just pulls him back in and hugs him again, brushes his lips over Ray's ear and smiles as they part, and head back to the recruit barracks, shoving at each others shoulders like always. 

And that's the thing. Nothing changes. Brad would have noticed, he thinks, if this had changed after that first kiss, but it didn't. Except for the fact that the kiss is a repeat event that escalates until Ray's running his tongue down Brad's bare stomach, Brad's hands fisted in his too long to be regulation hair. Brad thinks sleeping with his best friend should be weirder than this, until Ray points out the high number of married or dating Jaeger co-pilots that aren't blood relations, and then things make a lot more sense. Or they do until Ray's mouth closes around Brad's dick, and then nothing makes much sense for a while.

Six months after they drift together for the first time, four after they start fucking, they graduate basic training, Brad with near perfect scores, Ray with hundreds across the board, the best scores they've seen since Nathaniel Fick, a guy with a shock of white blond hair says. Predictably this swells Ray's already far too big ego, and Brad spends the next couple of weeks calling him a white trash sisterfucking hick while they draw up the plans for the Jaeger they're going to be piloting. Brad does most of the technical drawing, designs weapons and armour while Ray does head stands and throws names at him every twenty minutes or so. The first name he suggests is Badass Motherfucker. They go downhill from there, Brad quickly realises, and stops listening, years of practice letting him throw out an automatic no every time Ray speaks without actually having to listen to the words he's saying. They're working in a room with the other new graduates, the only other pilots to graduate from this shatterdome in this recruitment drive, John Christeson and Evan Stafford, the guy with the shock of hair who talks about the Ficks like they're gods, who's been with the PPDC for almost five years and just never had a co-pilot, apparently. 

Christeson is only sixteen, some kind of drifting prodigy apparently, can drift with pretty much everyone he chooses to, could drift with Stafford without being hooked up to the machines after their third sim. He tells Brad that Wynn pulled some strings to get him accepted into the California shatterdome two years early, and Brad's not surprised. Christeson calls Stafford Q-Tip because of his hair, and after a couple of weeks, the nickname sticks, and Brad gets used to spending hours at a time in a room with three people who are just as likely to burst into song as the next person. About three weeks after they graduate, they start meeting some of the other Rangers in the shatterdome; an experimental trio whose drift compatability scores as duos are outstanding, but as a three are off the scale. They're putting the finishing touches to a prototype design for a three armed Jaeger that Espera, the oldest of the three, tells Brad they've already named Devil Dog. Brad spots the dog tags hanging around the necks of all three of them, offers a minor improvement to the third shoulder joint that they're having trouble placing without impairing the mobility of one of the other arms, and receives a grin and a fistbump from Lilley, the youngest pilot, only a year or so older than Brad.

There are only three operational and piloted Jaegers in the shatterdome at that point. An ancient but breathtaking Mark One called Hunter Alpha is the biggest, the only functional Mark One in the world, and the first Jaeger ever built. It's piloted by two guys called Patterson and Kocher, and Brad finds out that Patterson was one of the first Jaeger pilots to experience the drift properly, with his wife and then co-pilot, that he went through training with the Ficks almost a decade ago now. After his wife died, he insisted on rebuilding the Jaeger she died in and started piloting with his childhood best friend, and now, even though they've since started making Mark Threes, he refuses to retire his Mark One. They have the second highest Kaiju kill count in the world, and he, along with his Jaeger are justifiably terrifying. Two guys called Reyes and Patrick pilot a brand new Mark Three that Reyes named Dharmic Fury, because apparently Patrick got to name the last one. Brad is convinced they're together until he meets Sherie, Rudy's tiny and terrifying mechanic wife who both men obviously adore. The last one is a fragile looking Mark Two that's facing retirement called Femme Fatale piloted by two women who look anything but fragile, tall and dark skinned and if Brad wasn't terrified of them too, he'd probably call them Amazonian, but as it is, he likes having his dick attached to the rest of him. He finds out that one of them is actually Espera's wife, Gina, and the other is her half sister, Zoe. Brad isn't small, but both women are almost as tall as he is, and he is under no impression that they couldn't kick his ass up and down the kwoon with both hands tied behind their backs.

Sometimes Brad goes into the launch bay just to watch the maintenance guys work, to stand in the shadow of one of the Jaegers and think about being up there, plugged into the machine and into Ray. It makes him feel impossibly small. It makes him feel impatient, and he always ends up rushing back to the workroom to put the ever increasing finishing touches on their blueprints. He wants to be out there fighting, he realises. He doesn't think he'd wanted that before he actually saw them, life size.

-

Wright: How much do you remember from the accident?

Hasser: Bits and pieces. They tell me it might never come back completely.

Wright: What's it like, knowing that you'll never pilot again?

Hasser: Most days, I'm okay with it, I think. It doesn't feel too bad. 

Wright: And the other days?

Hasser: It's like half my brain is missing, not just a chunk of my thigh.

Wright: What does that feel like?

Hasser: Like I'm empty? Like I'm sitting at home waiting for the doorbell to ring, and I've forgotten that there is no doorbell. And there's no one coming. Sometimes it feels like its not even my house.

-

Their Jaeger design has been finished for three days, and she still doesn't have a name. Ray is sitting cross legged on the table, staring at the finished blueprint. Brad looks at the form in front of him. He's filling out her specs, but there's a blank section right at the top underneath their names, _Name of Jaeger_. He looks up at Ray, who's scowling at the blueprint, and he slides off the table to look over Brad's shoulder. 'Fuck man, just call it Whiskey Tango, fuck knows you keep calling me a white trash goatfucker.' Brad looks at him, thinks about all the Jaegers with phonetic alphabet names, and sighs.

'Fuck it,' he says, and scrawls it in looping capitals. Ray whoops and snatches the forms and runs to the other side of the room to wave it in Christeson's face with a cry of 'we win, we win!' Brad rolls his eyes so hard it gives him a headache. Espera, who goes by Poke to save the confusion of having two Esperas in the launch bay, is passing by. He gives Ray a Look, and then glances at Brad, who half shrugs, jerking one shoulder up and down as if to say 'You and me both, man.' Poke laughs, and keeps on down the corridor. Looks like he's heading to the launch bay, probably to check up on Devil Dog. She's been under construction for three months now, and she looks almost Jaeger shaped. Brad throws his pen at Ray and heaves himself up off his chair, confiscates the forms and jogs down the corridor to file them with Wynn. 

Wynn skims the forms, raises one cool eyebrow at the name but says nothing, and stamps the forms. Brad grins without even really realising it, and turns to run the forms down to the launch bay. Twenty four hours later, the empty launch bay has a base and a sign with 'Colbert and Person: Whiskey Tango' stamped on it.

- 

Wright: So, what's it like, being able to drift with almost everyone? I've been told that's uh, somewhat rare? 

Stafford: Fuck rare, man. My boy's drift skills are un-fucking-heard of. They're screwby, brah. 

Wright: [pauses] Ranger Christeson?

Christeson: It's weird.

Wright: How do you mean?

Christeson: It kind of feels like wearing someone else's clothes, 'cause, y'know, I'm so used to being in Q-Tip's head? Or new shoes, maybe. Even if they fit you, you gotta break em in, right? 

Wright: Is there anyone you can't drift with?

Christeson: Iceman. Uh, Ranger Colbert. No one can drift with him though, except his old co-pilot. It's like he won't let anyone in his head. S'fucked up, man.

-

Forty eight hours after Brad files the forms for Whiskey Tango, Ray transfers out of the Jaeger program, goes to work in a lab where he cuts up dead Kaiju and antagonises the guy he shares the lab with, some blond kid called Walt, who walks with a cane and is always smiling, even when Ray breaks out the Britney Spears. He doesn't tell Brad why.

No, he does, gives him some long and rambling explanation about how working in the lab is way more interesting than poking around in Brad's head while they drift in the simulators and waiting six months for them to build Whiskey Tango when there's no guarantee they'll even get a chance to pilot her in combat. 'This way, dude,' Ray says while he's throwing clothes in a duffle 'at least I get to get up close and personal with these Kaiju motherfuckers. Plus,' he adds, grinning lecherously, 'Walt is hot as shit, homes.' 

That's what he says, but what Brad hears is that Ray is lying. What Brad hears is that Ray doesn't want to co-pilot with him, and Brad's not a fucking child, he's not going to cry or whine or talk about his fucking feelings, but that's painful, he finds out. He feels betrayed, and it fucking hurts. He doesn't say that though. What he says is 'good riddance', what he says is 'fuck off and annoy Walt then', what he says is 'this way I might get a less fucking annoying co-pilot'.

So Ray moves into new barracks, a room just off from his lab. Brad officially meets Walt, and really, really wants to hate him, but he thinks it might be impossible. Walt is from Virginia and is everyone's best friend forever. His cane means he walks with a hopping gait, but he never complains, never asks for Ray to slow down for him, even though Brad notices Ray slowing down automatically. He's painfully smart, some kind of child prodigy at art who decided to join the shatterdome and design weapons. He'd actually come up with the skeleton for Devil Dog, Brad finds out when he's collecting information on Walt from the other pilots. Brad knows that Ray's going to sleep with him the first time he sees them together, moving around each other in the lab, fighting absentmindedly over what would be more effective in a Jaeger. Ray finds out that Kaiju skin dissolves when it comes into contact with gold, but Walt says it's not cost effective to gold plate a Jaeger, and anyway the end result would be something flashy and obnoxious, and that dissolves in to insults usually involving one or both of their mothers, and Brad takes the opportunity to leave them to it.

Sometimes he goes down to the launch bay to look at the halted construction for Whiskey Tango. The shatterdome has a three month period for Rangers who lose their co-pilot to find a new one before Jaeger construction is scrapped. Today is the start of the second month, and Brad has yet to find anyone to co-pilot with. Wynn, taking into account Brad's excellent sim scores, drafts unpartnered Rangers from the other shatterdomes, but Brad is drift incompatible with every single one of them. The neural handshake just won't take, and Brad keeps throwing the other Ranger out of his head by accident. The technicians are baffled, and Brad gets sent to Bryan, the chief medic, for a brain scan, and various other tests, mostly involving a simulation tank. No explanation, Bryan says, not physiologically, anyway. The medic tries to send him to a shrink, but Brad would rather leave the Jaeger program, he thinks. He talks to Christeson, tries drifting with him, but its the same old story, they start the drift and then Brad's head throws the brakes on and forces Christeson out. 

Eventually, Brad's three months are up. They scrap Whiskey Tango and start building a new skeleton for a Jaeger called Yankee Noir, a husband and wife team from Boston. Next to them, Q-Tip and Christeson's Jaeger is looking almost Jaeger shaped, just starting its third month of construction. Brad watches it slowly take shape. He has to choose; transfer or leave.

-

Wright: So, what's the best thing about being in the Jaeger program?

Reyes: My man Pappy here, brother. He makes the whole thing so much better.

Wright: Why is that?

Reyes: His positive energy, man. Pap has the clearest aura I've ever seen. It's a privilege to share a headspace with him.

Patrick: Rudy's a great co-pilot. He just kind of brings out the best in everyone. The team loves him.

Wright: And what about your Jaeger? I understand it's one of the first long distance Jaegers?

Patrick: Dharmic Fury was never designed for combat. We get enough guys wanting to punch the shit out of aliens. We worked with Hasser and designed a lightweight Jaeger with what we're calling sniper capabilities. It can take out a Kaiju from about a half mile away, in theory.

Wright: Impressive. Why Dharmic Fury? 

Reyes: Our girl's a tool of peace, brother. She allows us to find our inner selves. [pause] And she lets us kick impressive amounts of ass. [laughter from Reyes and Patrick]

-

Brad's sleeping when it happens. The alarm blares, base-wide, and he's jerked awake. Out of his window he sees the launch bay leaping into action, and he drags some clothes on and hits the corridor at a run, meeting Wynn just before the lift. 'What the fuck, Marshal?' he asks. Wynn looks worried, almost panicked, if Brad didn't know that Wynn doesn't do panic.

'Assassin Sierra. She's doing an emergency landing, she's in a bad way. Don't know how bad yet. At least one of them is still alive, don't know which one though.'

'Shit.' Brad says. He doesn't feel like shit is quite strong enough, so he says it again, for good measure, and picks up the pace.

About twenty minutes after he's awake, Brad is pacing the launch bay, chain smoking, as on edge as the rest of them. Gears grind, and the door creaks open slowly. Brad drops his cigarette and grinds it out, ignores the look from Wynn. 

The Jaeger is a mess, one arm gone and both legs almost shredded. There's a gash right down the chest, and Brad can see the core pulsing, flickering in and off. The Jaeger takes two more steps and one of the knee joints buckles; she goes down hard, the floor shaking with impact. Brad can see a gaping hole in the helmet when she finally collapses, and Bryan's on the move before most people have even found their feet again, sprinting across the launch bay floor. Wynn is on his heels, Patterson too, and Brad vaguely remembers that Patterson went through basic training with the Ficks. He imagines briefly what it would be like if any of the pilots he knows had been in that Jaeger, and his gut clenches. He has the presence of mind to corral the guys who work under him into keeping people away from the Jaeger, Bryan's just disappeared into the hull of it, and he's going to need room to get them out if they're still alive. Brad's a big guy, so are most of his mechanics and they manage to keep enough people back that when Bryan shouts for a stretcher, one makes its way in quickly and easily. Brad glances over his shoulder when the stretcher comes out again, sees mostly red, burn marks and blood, and looks away again.

Later, he finds out that the person on the stretcher was Nate Fick. He has burns on seventy percent of his body, and brain damage so severe that Bryan's not sure he's going to wake up. His mother died three hours before the shatterdome was alerted they were coming in. He'd piloted the Jaeger alone for three hours, dragged her from the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and brought her home, where she was built. Fick was based out of the Anchorage shatterdome, Brad has no idea why he piloted her all the way down here, but he's here now, unconscious in a room next to Ray's lab.

-

Wright: Was it an easy decision, piloting with your mother?

Fick, N: Easier than you'd think. I know a lot of guys wouldn't want their mothers in their heads. Would you? [Wright shakes his head]

Fick, E: t was actually me that wasn't sure at first. Not because it was Nate. It's not a decision to be made lightly. I think that's why a lot of recruits, especially best friends that sign up together, I think that's why they either quit after the first month or transfer out. It's harder than a lot of them realise, to let someone in.

( _from **Man and Machine** : **T** **he Next Generation of Soldiers** , first published in Rolling Stone, 2020)_

-

Fick wakes up after three weeks. Brad only hears about it when the guy's left. The wreckage is still on the floor of the launch bay. His mother's funeral was two weeks ago. 

Wright: It must have been hard, losing your mother while you were still connected. 

Fick: Next question.

Wright: But I-

Fick: Next question, or this interview is over.

-

Brad's been welding for about twenty minutes when he notices the guy watching him, a middle aged guy with a tablet balanced on his knees as he sits across the bay from Brad. He occasionally looks down and taps on it, like he's typing, and then he goes back to watching Brad. Sometimes his gaze drifts to one of the pilots walking past in their bomber jackets, logo and Jaeger name printed on the back. Poke calls a greeting to Brad from where he's lounging by the left foot of Devil Dog, checking up on the patch up job she just had. Brad nods, glances over at the guy writing again, and goes back to welding. It's the middle of summer, too hot to be doing anything, really, let alone welding, and the sweat is dripping down between his shoulder blades before he finishes and flips the mask up again. The guy is still watching him. He's not a pilot, Brad would know if they'd accepted any new transfers from other shatterdomes, and they only got one new couple out of the last batch of recruits in California. He doesn't look like a scientist or a mechanic, and Brad's pretty sure he's not Command or tech support. 

It's noisy in the launch bay, and Brad doesn't hear Wynn approaching until he's right behind him, the mysterious watcher standing at Wynn's shoulder, still clutching his tablet in one hand, a backpack in the other. He looks wary, and mildly terrified as Brad rises to his feet, towering over both men. 'Brad is our Chief Mechanic,' Wynn is saying over the noise of heavy machinery, 'every single design for Jaegers goes through him.' The other guy nods, drops his backpack to tap on the tablet again, and Brad realises he's a reporter. 'Brad, this is Evan Wright. He's from Rolling Stone, he's doing a piece on the functionality of the California and Alaska shatterdomes versus the smaller Asian and Australian ones. He'll be shadowing the pilots and a few big names, mostly you and our boys in B21.' Brad nods and extends a hand. Wright takes it, his grip surprisingly firm. 'I'll leave you to talk.' Wynn starts to leave, and then shouts over his shoulder 'and be nice!' Brad is insulted at the insinuation. Almost. 'Oh, and Brad?' Wynn continues, pausing a few feet away. 'Get some of your guys to clear that end bay. We have a new Ranger coming in later today.' Brad nods and makes a mental note. Wright picks up his backpack and follows him silently as he collars a half dozen guys and tells them to get into the HGVs and shift all the shit from the end bay. 

Five years, it took him, to get to the top. Brad's never liked being at the top much, but he's good at what he does, and they don't have anyone else, since the last attack took out half of the state, and they're stretched a little thin in terms of keeping the shatterdome staffed. That taken care of, he turns back round to face Wright. 'What do you want to know?' he asks, pulling a rag out of his back pocket and wiping his hands as clean as they're going to get without industrial soap and a wire scrubber.

'Why did you and your co-pilot transfer out of the Jaeger program, despite having two of the highest scores ever recorded?' Brad looks at him, lets his face go cold in what his guys call his 'Iceman' face, and Wright stops looking curious and starts looking worried. 'I mean, that's what my sources said, when I gave them your name...' he says, backtracking, but Brad interrupts him.

'Next question,' he says, abrupt, and he doesn't care if it's rude. The reporter consults his tablet.

'How does it work around here? Do all these guys work for you?'

Brad's happy to answer this question. He tucks the rag back into his pocket and starts walking, taking Wright in a quick tour of the launch bay, checks on the progress of the repairs on Hunter Alpha, and then hands him off to Carizalez for a proper tour.

On the way up to see Ray he gets sidetracked by the newest recruits who wanted his opinion on flight capabilities of Jaegers. Fucking Air Force washouts. That dealt with, he follows the sound of country music down the corridors to B21 and keys in the code for the lab. It's supposed to be restricted entry, but Ray is incapable of keeping his mouth shut, and Brad is very persuasive, so Brad has 24/7 entry, pretty much. He flips the switch on the ancient stereo and kills the music. It takes Ray and Walt a couple of seconds to realise that the only sound is them singing, and Walt trails off, blushing. Ray turns to look at Brad and just sings louder, off key and awkward until he finishes the chorus. Brad helps himself to coffee from the pot on the counter not covered in half dissected Kaiju skin parasites and waits patiently. Eventually, Ray stops singing, refills his own cup of coffee and ignores Walt's complaining sounds when he smears blue slime across the only clean counter in the whole lab. Brad watches them argue and thinks it should really be more awkward for him that it is, but he really can't begrudge Ray his happiness. Sure, he and Ray worked well together, but it was a relationship borne of convenience and familiarity, he thinks. He watches Ray light up when Walt drifts past, still complaining idly as his hand brushes the nape of Ray's neck.

'So have you guys been lumbered with the reporter yet?' Brad says between mouthfuls of coffee. He thinks it would be a lot easier to hate Walt if he didn't make such fucking excellent coffee. The look on Ray's face tells him everything he needs to.

'Fucking Rolling Stone?' Brad nods. 'Yeah. Came prepared with all these bullshit questions about my test scores and Walt's leg. We told him to fuck off.' Walt coughs from where he's fiddling with a computer. 'Okay, fine. _I_  told him to fuck off. What'd he ask you?'

'Why two such outstanding young Rangers such as you and I would transfer out of the most prestigious career program there is.' 

Ray snorts. 'What'd you tell him?' 

'I implied it was in his best interests to ask less personal questions.' Brad finishes his coffee just in time for Ray to take the mug out of his hands and use it as an ashtray. 

'Hey, so in between bossing people about and terrifying hippie reporters, did you hear about Fick?' 

Brad frowns slightly. 'What about him?'

'Apparently he's back. Wants to pilot again.'

Brad suddenly understands why he had to clear that bay. 

-

Wright: Let's talk about Devil Dog.

Lilley: She's fucking beautiful, ain't she?

Espera, A: She's unprecedented, is what she is, dawg.

Garza: Yeah, man. One of a kind.

Wright: You guys are the first trio of Rangers, right? As opposed to just a two man team. How did that happen?

Espera, A: Me and Garza were co-pilots from the start, we were unbelievably drift compatible, even as near strangers. It was so fucking weird. But you hear stories, don't you, people who just happen to meet at the start of training and they turn out to be some of the best co-pilots in the world.

Garza: Rudy and Pappy, man. They didn't even meet until a year after they'd started piloting. Rudy's co-pilot used to be Sherie, but him and Pappy, man.

Lilley: It's unbelievable. Good thing Sherie doesn't get jealous, man, because if I were her, I'd be feeling seriously replaced.

Garza: It's a good job we aren't looking to replace your white ass then, isn't it?

Espera, A: Anyway, Lilley came along in the next batch of training, and he ran some sims with Garza when I was taking some paternity leave, and the scores were almost off the chart, apparently, so we did some rotating between the three of us for a while, in Falcon Rage [ _the Mark Two Jaeger Espera and Garza used to pilot_ ] and then we realised it was fucking ridiculous. I talked to Hasser and we drew up a skeleton for a three armed Jaeger. Got Wynn to sign off on it, and here we are, dawg. Most beautiful Jaeger in the whole launch bay.

Wright: I feel like a lot of pilots here would beg to differ.

[all three laugh]

- 

Brad knows when Fick arrives, because people can't stop talking about him. Brad spends most of his time up in the Gods, supervising the repairs to Hunter Alpha's weapons, but he still hears all these stories about how Fick's looking for a new pilot, how all the unattached Rangers in the shatterdome are being tested for their drift compatibility. 

How Fick doesn't like any of them, apparently. Brad couldn't care less. If he's honest, what he's most interested in is the new Jaeger. The Ficks were famous for designing deceptively simple Jaegers, and through some probably frowned upon information gathering (read: hacking), Brad has flipped through the blueprints for Assassin Sierra Marks One to Four, and of course he's seen the wreckage of the Mark Four, lying sprawled across the floor of his launch bay two years ago. It won't compare to building the Mark Five though, Brad knows that. He'd loved piloting, but he's always been happiest working with his hands.

He's left the guys in charge of Hunter Alpha's repairs to it, and he's hiding above the empty bay that he assumes will be used to build Assassin Sierra V, smoking.

'Can I bum one?' Brad doesn't fall off the balcony only through sheer willpower, years of Ray bursting into his room unexpectedly having numbed him to surprises. He glances over his shoulder. A guy in a thin khaki t-shirt and battered jeans is standing a few feet away. In the dim light, Brad can only just see the spiderweb of scars that crawls up from the neck of the t-shirt and curls over the edge of his jaw. He hands over the pack and lighter silently, and the other guy smiles, nods a thanks and sits down next to Brad, legs dangling over the edge of the platform. 'It always surprises me how there's any place in any shatterdome that's quiet.' 

Brad nods and breathes out a thin stream of smoke, straight up in the air. 'I guess it depends how well you know your shatterdome.'  

The other guy laughs quietly, and inclines his head in acquiescence. 'Fair. It's been a while.' 

Brad hums in agreement, flicks the ash off the end of his cigarette and watches it trickle downwards. They finish their cigarettes in silence after that. Brad watches the people below moving, and pretends he doesn't know that this guy is watching him. He grinds the butt out on the platform and climbs to his feet, stretching. He's about to leave when the guy says 'You're Brad Colbert.' It's not a question. 

'You're Nate Fick.' Brad says, also not a question. 'Did you want something, or can I get back to work?' 

Fick grins. 'Just some peace and quiet and a smoke. I'll see you around, Brad.' 

Later, Brad doesn't know why that bothers him, Fick using his first name. He guesses maybe he's used to Colbert, shouted across the deck, over the sound of machinery and other shouts.

Apparently, they're drafting in single Rangers from the other seven shatterdomes in an attempt to find someone to drift with Fick, but either they're drift incompatible, or Fick won't co-pilot with them. Brad doesn't care, really, but somehow they've fallen into a routine of meeting up over the future building site of Fick's new Jaeger to smoke and not talk. Or rather, Brad doesn't talk. Fick seems happy enough talking and talking without expecting an answer, mostly about how they're even drafting non-Rangers with drift experience, like Sherie Reyes. Brad laughs at the thought of Fick piloting with tiny, terrifying Sherie and wonders idly why he and Ray haven't been tapped for it, a question answered when Carizalez turns up at Brad's hiding place just after Fick's left to tell him that Wynn wants to see him.

Brad takes his time making his way to Wynn's; he's not stupid, he knows exactly why he's been summoned, and he's in no hurry to tell him to go fuck himself. He drops off some corrections on one of the new Jaegers, and drops in on Ray and Walt to make sure Ray hasn't set his face on fire again, but eventually, he finds himself sitting in Wynn's office, trying and failing to avoid getting oil on the chair. Wynn is a master of neutral expressions, and he keeps Brad waiting while he fills out a form, not even glancing up once until there's a knock on the door, and Fick doesn't wait for permission to enter. Wynn looks up and doesn't grin, exactly, but there's a look in his eyes that very few people are on the receiving end of. Brad looks between the two and stands up, says 'No,' and makes for the exit.

'Brad,' Wynn starts, and he's using his 'stop acting like such a fucking child' tone. 

Brad stops, turns to look at him again, and very carefully keeps his tone level and calm. Mostly. 'You're going to ask me to test my drift compatibility with him. You're going to ask me to drift with him if I'm compatible. Haven't you learnt your fucking lesson yet? _I can't drift_. Or have you forgotten what happened the last half a dozen times you tried to pair me off with someone? Nosebleeds, loss of consciousness, one guy almost had permanent _brain damage_.' Wynn doesn't say anything to that, and Brad snorts. 'That's what I thought.' 

He's about to leave when something occurs to him, and he turns back into the office. 'Why haven't you tapped Ray for this? He has the same perfect scores as the golden Ranger here.' Brad doesn't look at Fick when he says this, but he doesn't respond, just keeps standing by the door, close enough to attention that it really pisses Brad off.

Wynn frowns at that, but all he says is 'you're going to have to ask Person about that. Dismissed, Colbert.'

Brad smokes three cigarettes before he even entertains the idea of going back to work, not in his usual place, but instead he lurks above the bay Yankee Noir lives in, the bay that should have held Whiskey Tango.

'What the fuck do you want?' he says, not even bothering to turn around.

'Nice, homes,' Ray gripes, picking his way across the platform. 'Now, I know that's not how you'd knowingly greet your pal Ray, so lets try again. Hello, Bradley, how are you today? And you say...?' 

'Why haven't you been tapped to test your drift compatibility with Fick?'

'Oh, I'm just great, Brad, thanks for asking.'

'Ray.'

Ray sighs, looks at the floor, then up at Brad again. He has Kaiju blue smeared on his shirt collar, and honestly, Brad doesn't even want to know. He lights two more cigarettes and hands one over. Ray takes a drag of his and takes a canister of pills out of his pocket, rattles them bitterly. 'Bipolar disorder.'

Brad chokes on his cigarette. 'What.' It's not a question.

'Yup. Since I was twelve.'

'Why...?' Brad suspects there was more to that question, but he doesn't know what it was. Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't I just _know_? 

'Because I didn't want you to treat me like I was broken,' Ray says, sullen, and Brad doesn't really know what to say to that. 'Because I wanted to be a Ranger. Because by the time I figured everything out, I'd been lying about it for too long.' His voice turns dark. 'Because maybe it was none of your fucking business.'

'And that's why you transferred.'

'Can't have someone as batshit as I am in charge of two hundred and fifty tons of semi sentient metal and nuclear weaponry.' Brad doesn't really know what to say to that. Ray takes another drag of his cigarette and tilts his head back to blow it straight up. He slumps next to Brad in the edge of the platform, all skinny limbs and new tattoos. Brad shoves at him, tells him to move the fuck over, and Ray snarks back, flicks cigarette ash at Brad and suddenly it feels like it used to. Back before they were fucking, anyway. It's good, he thinks, that they can still get back to that. The ladder clatters behind them, and Fick peers over the edge. Brad glances over, and says nothing. '...am I interrupting something?' Fick says, and starts climbing down again.

'Why does everyone always know where to find me?' Brad complains. Ray grins, finishes his cigarette and flicks the butt away.

'Like your hiding places need a lot of deducing, Brad. Anyway. There's a Kaiju dick that requires my attention at normal people altitude.' He winks at Brad, and leers at Fick while he waits for the ladder to be freed up. 'He's all yours, man. Play nice, boys.'

'Fuck off, you inbreed,' Brad throws over his shoulder, but there's no heat in it, and Ray cackles, says 'Ray's got your six, homes,' and vanishes down the ladder, leaving Brad with a half smoked cigarette and potentially unwanted company.

Brad taps ash off his cigarette, and still says nothing to Fick. 'Your co pilot,' Fick says eventually, gesturing at the ladder Ray just vanished down.

'Ex,' Brad says shortly.

Fick shrugs. 'If you say so.'

Brad looks at him. 

'There's really no such thing as an ex-co pilot. One of those with you till you die deals.'

'If you say so,' Brad parrots back, surprising a grin out of Fick.

'So.' Fick changes the subject. 'Brain damage.'

'Almost brain damage. He made a full recovery. And it was one time.'

'And Mike still thinks you should pilot a jaeger.'

'I'm good. Better than most. With Ray.' Fick nods.

'So it's not that you can't drift. You won't drift.'

'You're saying I deliberately throw everyone out.'

'Do you?'

Brad looks at him, lip curling. 'No.'

'Not enough room in your head for anyone who isn't Person, then. I've been there.' 

Brad drops his gaze, looks down at the people swarming around the feet of Yankee Noir. 'What?' Fick continues. 'You think after my mother died I could just drift with anyone? You're not the only guy throwing people out of his head left, right and centre, Brad.' Brad curls his lip, resists the urge to light up again. 'Ray's not dead. But he might as well be, for all you'll get the chance to drift with him again.' Fick sits down next to Brad, a careful distance kept between them. 'You are too good a pilot to lose to the engineering department.' 

Brad snorts. 'Where were you three years ago? They gave me a choice. Engineering, or out.' 

'Grieving.' Fick says simply, and Brad flinches. 

'Right.' 

Fick gets up, heads for the ladder. He pauses just before climbing down it, looks at Brad. Brad looks back. 'Get tested for drift compatibility with me. We'll take it from there. Maybe you'll throw me out. Maybe I'll throw you out. Either way, we'll deal with it then.' 

'Why are you so fucking invested in getting me back in a jaeger?' Brad doesn't mean to sound that hostile, but Fick doesn't react. 

'I'm the best they have. They need me out there. I need a pilot. It's not like you have anything better to do.' Fick grins again and disappears down the ladder, leaving Brad with a handful of cigarette butts and the vague sense of nausea deep in the pit of his gut.

- 

Wright: Was it weird, going from Ranger to scientist? 

Person: At first, I guess. But I got the best fucking job in the entire PPDC, homes. I get even closer to Kaijuu than the Rangers, it's friggin' A, man.  

Wright: So you don't miss it, then? 

Person: What, drifting? Of fucking course I do. You ever tried that shit? [Wright shakes his head] It's the fucking greatest, knowing that there's a guy right next to you that will never not have your six in combat. Un fucking beatable feeling, I'm telling ya. 

Wright: What about Hasser? What's it like working with him?

Person: Man, all that dude has going for him is his taste in music. And trim. 

Hasser: [from across the lab] Hey, screw you, Person.

Person: My boy's a genuine grade A genius, Rolling Stone. He can design circles around every other motherfucker in this or any Shatterdome.

- 

Brad dreams about piloting a Jaeger maybe once or twice a month. The co-pilot varies, sometimes Ray, sometimes the sister he still talks to, sometimes he can't see their face. On one memorable occasion he ends up piloting it with Poke, which goes about as well as you'd expect. Brad genuinely likes Poke, but they butt heads far too often to ever work as co-pilots in reality.

The Jaeger though, she's always the same, always Whiskey Tango; even though she was never built, he spent long enough designing her that he knows what she looks like inside and out. He always wakes up feeling lonely, after those dreams.

- 

Wright: Would you go back to piloting, if you had the chance? 

Colbert: What, you mean if I magically regain the ability to drift? [Wright nods] In a heartbeat.

- 

For a few weeks after Brad's meeting with Wynn, Rangers continue to be flown into the Californian Shatterdome, some before the shine of graduation has even worn off. Eventually, they're going to have to start testing recruits. He doesn't see Fick during those weeks except from at a distance, looking tired. Brad's tired too, the most recent Kaiju attack nearly took out both Devil Dog and Femme Fatale, they're under extensive repairs, and both Esperas are stuck in medical, to their fury, leaving Brad to deal with their fairly competent but far less experienced co-pilots. He pawns Garza and Lilley off on Walt for weapons training to keep them away from the repairs [and away from Poke, something Doc Bryan would thank him for, if the Doc had a setting other than 'you're all fucking idiots'] but he's justifiably wary of Zoe Mendes, who's almost as tall as Brad himself, and is definitely the scarier of the two half-siblings. 

He's just finished dropping some repair paperwork for Devil Dog off in R&D when he sees Fick hunched over a metal desk, sketching half heartedly. Brad peers over his shoulder and sees the vague design of a Jaeger. It's not great, there are at least a half dozen weak points in the joins that Brad can see, and he thinks that it must have been Fick's mother who designed Assassin Sierra Marks One to Four. 'Who the fuck taught you to design Jaegers?' he asks, and Fick jumps, skittering the pencil right across the paper and slicing a line right through one of the Jaeger's elbows. 

'It was never one of my strong suits,' Fick says, scrubbing at the line with an eraser and tossing the pencil across the desk with a clatter.

'I can see that.' Brad says with a smirk, kicking the chair next to Fick out and dropping into it. 'You're going to want to reinforce the knees and hips if you want it to be able to carry it's own weight, and that chest cavity is far too bulky for you to get any kind of powerful upper body momentum.' Brad swipes the pencil off the table and scribbles some quick improvements, mostly just strengthening the joints and shrinking down the chest cavity, talking as he does so. 'The thing about the Mark Fives is that they built a new type of core, much smaller than the old ones, means we can cut things right down, make them lighter and faster. Someone's even been making noise about flight capabilities, but really, that's kind of beyond us right now, funds wise, anyway.' He sketches in a new elbow joint, and glances up at Fick, who's just sitting, eyes flickering between Brad's hand and his face. 'What?' he asks, putting the pencil down.

'If you're as good as piloting Jaegers as you are at designing them, I can understand Wynn's reluctance to let you go.' Brad frowns. 'He reached out for unattached pilots from other shatterdomes for you. Do you know how rare that is, dragging them from Hong Kong, Sydney, Alaska? I figured you must be something special.' Brad shrugs, picks up the pencil again and starts a new smaller sketch. 

'You're going to want different weapons from the old Assassin Sierra's. Hasser, I assume you've met him, he's working on a version of the plasma cannon mounted on the Mark Four's shoulders, but based in the wrists. Smaller, less powerful, but easier to aim, and quicker to recharge.' Brad scribbles something next to the sketch and tosses the pencil onto the desk. 'Take this up to Hasser before you get Wynn to sign off on it. Ignore the retard in the lab coat with food on his face.' He gets up from the desk, and on the way to the door, says 'Next time you want to know anything about me, don't go to my boss. I don't bite,' and leaves, heading back to medical to check up on the Esperas and make sure the Doc isnt considering murdering one or both of them. Poke is one of the worst possible patients, Brad knows, and apparently Gina isn't much better.

'Get tested, Brad. Wynn's running out of pilots, and the PPDC is running out of time. You think the double event that almost took out Devil Dog and Femme Fatale was a one off?'

Brad keeps walking.

-

Wright: So, what went wrong?

Espera, A: Sometimes shit just goes south. Every Kaiju is different, we were taken by surprise. We've never fought two at the same time before.

Espera, G: It won't happen again, now we know the score. 

Wright: Doesn't it worry you, that the attacks are getting more and more frequent?

Espera, G: Nah, we can handle it. Like Tony says, we got caught with our pants around our ankles. Next time, we'll be expecting two. And we'll fucking kick their asses. Right, baby?

Espera, A: Fuckin' right, Gee.

-

Gina's sister Zoe is just leaving when Brad gets there, and they nod greetings to each other. They stop to talk for a few minutes, and Brad finds out that Gina's going to be out of the Jaeger for six months, Poke for even longer. Unless they find people to fill the gaps, that's two of the strongest teams out for over half a year. Kaiju attacks are happening more and more frequently, and Brad knows that Fick is right. They're working on borrowed time, and it's less days, more hours until the next attack. He stops off at Ray and Walt's lab for coffee and to pass the news on to Lilley and Garza. They tell him they can draft in Garza's brother short term, he's stationed in Hong Kong as an engineer, but he's piloted before, and while it'll be a pain if he's not compatible with Lilley, he'll likely have a strong enough neural handshake with Garza to make it work. Brad nods, makes a mental note to tweak the controls. With Poke out, the dynamic will shift and Lilley and Garza will have to switch, but at least they'll have Devil Dog in the field. 

They're still one Jaeger down though, with the three new recruit pairs at least two months away from any blueprints being signed off, let alone ready to begin construction, and they've pushed Fick's Jaeger into priority construction, Walt tells him, building up the same basic skeleton as the old Mark Four and giving Fick some breathing room on the specifics. For the hour and a half Brad was in medical, Fick was apparently having an intensive weaponry talk, punctuated by a minor explosion on Ray's side of the lab, and Assassin Sierra Mark Five should be up and running in two and a half months. 'Fucking lot of good it'll do them,' Ray says around a mouthful of soggy cereal. 'Ain't like he has a co-pilot to ride with.' Brad doesn't think about the way Fick sounds when he tells Brad to get tested, hopeful and friendly and so fucking optimistic Brad can't stand it.

-

Wright: So how did you end up paired with Ranger Stafford?

Christeson: Luck, I guess. He was running the drift compatibility testing, didn't believe me when I said I could drift with everyone in the room.

Stafford: He was a cocky motherfucker, even back then. Voice had barely broken and he acted like the biggest man in the kwoon.

Christeson: He called what he thought was my bluff, and we just clicked. No fucking around, just boom, we were in each other's heads. 

Stafford: Now we're stuck with each other.

Wright: I was told it was one of the fastest pairings of strangers since Patrick and Reyes, seven years ago.

Stafford: Yeah, sounds about right. We were pretty tight, even back then. My boy could have taught most of the older Ranger pairs a lesson about drifting after his first week, yo.

-

Assassin Sierra is finished three months to the day after they start construction, and it's not just because Brad helped design her that she takes his breath away. She's officially the first (and currently) only Mark Five, the only Jaeger with Walt's new weapon and targeting system, the lightest and fastest Jaeger in any Shatterdome, and she's fucking beautiful. Fick had said his mother did most of the designing, but Brad can see the emulations of his mother's design in the way the armour plating lies, the subtleties in the designs of the hands and feet, little things like that. It makes Brad think about the Jaeger staggering into the bay four years ago, crippled and broken and almost dead. He remembers wondering as a kid about the Jaegers that they lost, what happened to them. He remembers thinking that maybe they buried them, because they were almost people, weren't they? Maybe there was a Jaeger cemetery out there, maybe in the Nevada desert.

Now, of course, now he knows that most of the Jaegers are never retrieved, and the ones that are are melted down and recycled for new construction. It's pretty poignant, he thinks. Circle of life and all that shit.

Of course, this line if thought doesn't help him understand why he's lurking at the back of the crowd in the kwoon, where Fick is testing the new batch of potentials. Testing and beating the crap out of them, it would seem. Brad's on the way back from the gym, where he likes to run at dawn in an attempt to do it alone. Usually it's just him and Reyes at that time, and Reyes is content to let Brad run in silence, so Brad allows it. 

There's a thud and some ragged cheering, and Brad's tall enough to see over most heads. Another recruit is on the floor, Fick's staff jammed into his windpipe. He has yet to break a sweat, Brad notes, and slowly, the crowd gets smaller and smaller as Fick tests them and boots them. He thinks vaguely he should leave before he's spotted and mistaken for a recruit, but somehow, he stays until it's just him and three others. Fick spotted him a while ago, and had grinned, quickly, before spinning and knocking one guy's feet from under him. Zoe Mendes is there, and she holds her own, takes Fick down twice before he manages to get a hit in, gets him across the face with the end of her staff, leaving a red mark just over his cheekbone.  He grins again then, and shifts on his feet, takes her down four times in succession and then helps her up, laughing. She leaves, but he sees Wynn marking something on a clipboard before she does, and before he knows it, Fick's taken down the last guy in the crowd and it's just Brad, standing there in his sweatpants and running shoes. Fick picks up the staff from where the last guy left it and holds it out to Brad, who shakes his head and turns to leave. 'Eventually you're going to have to face this, Brad,' Fick says, and Brad pauses. 'You can't run from your brain forever.' Brad turns, and Fick tosses the staff at him and shifts into a defensive position, his own staff dangling by his side. Brad stands there for a few moments, feeling the weight of the staff in his hand. It's a familiar weight, but unwieldy, he hasn't used one in almost six years, since he stopped trying to drift with people. He shifts on his feet, looks over at Wynn, who shrugs as if to say 'why not?'

'Come on, Brad,' Fick says, hopping from foot to foot and twirling his staff. 'You might as well get it over with. Unless you think I'm going to embarrass you, of course.' 

Brad glances up at the observation deck, where people have suddenly gathered. Ray pushes his way to the front of the small crowd, suddenly, followed by Walt, who leans his cane against the railing and grins down at Brad.

Brad toes his sneakers off, balls his socks and strips his raggy t-shirt off and tosses everything to one side, padding onto the mats, staff held loosely. Ray wolf whistles, and jeers from some of Brad's guys follow. Brad rises up on his tiptoes and lowers back down slowly, brings the staff up and strikes. Fick ducks, something hits him in the back of his knees and he ends up flat on his back with Fick's knee in his belly. Ray starts heckling again, and Fick climbs off him, giving him a hand up. 'It's been a while, huh?' he says, backing off and dropping into the same defensive position. Brad replies by attacking again, getting a jab into Fick's solar plexus, hard enough to knock the wind out of him, not hard enough that he's gasping for breath, drops to one knee and uses the staff as leverage as he sweeps round, swiping Fick's feet out from underneath him. More cheers this time, but Fick's on his feet before Brad has a chance to help him up.

The next bout is more vicious as they fall into a rhythm, each countering the other's strikes with alarming accuracy, and Brad can feel the edge of Fick's mind, the same way he felt Ray's when they first did this, the same way he feels with the handful of people he's drift compatible with, and he realises that he can drift with Fick. Jury is still out on whether the handshake will catch, or whether one or both of them will start bleeding from the eyes and nose, but he knows that Fick can feel it too, sweat dripping off both of them as Brad catches him in the stomach, doubles him over and gets another point.

Fick switches tactics then, goes in hard and fast and surprises two points out of Brad, the second by catching him in the back of the head and sending him into a semi controlled tumble. The crowd is pretty divided at that point, half cheering for Brad and half heckling him, although the heckling is mostly led by Ray, who keeps shouting 'you suck, Bradley!' and then cackling like a madman.

They're both covered in sweat by then, Fick's shirt sticking to the hard lines of his body. Brad can see the scars standing out on his neck and jaw in the fluorescent light, tries not to stare, and settles back into a defensive stance, and decides this time to wait for Fick to strike first.

They circle each other for a couple of minutes, long enough for the crowd to get restless and then Fick takes a step forward, sweeps his staff low. Brad jumps, lands solidly and catches Fick off balance just enough to use his longer legs to advantage and kick him in the stomach, sending him back a couple of paces, stumbling. He loses his balance and ends up on the floor, rolling out of Brad's reach and up on to his knees in time for Brad to jam his staff into the hollow of his throat. They stand, frozen. Brad feels Nate swallow, can see the sweat trickling down his temple, and watches the grin spread across his face. Brad knows that he might have won the physical fight, but Nate won the mental one. He tosses the staff away and helps Nate up, they shake hands, and Nate won't stop grinning. Brad sees Wynn writing something down out of the corner of his eye, and Brad turns away, pulls his shirt over his head and grabs his shoes, doesn't bother putting them in before he leaves, head bowed. He pretends he doesn't hear Nate shouting his name after him. 

Later that night, he realises he can't remember when he stopped thinking of him as Nate, not Fick.

-

Wright: So what kind of injuries do you have to deal with on a day to day basis?

Bryan: Mostly bruises, split lips sometimes from drift compatibility testing. These idiots can't pull a strike to save their lives. Burns too, from engineering. Simple stuff. Sometimes though, we get to see the special shit, Kaiju related injuries.

Wright: Like the Esperas.

Bryan: Like the Esperas. Do you have a point?

Wright: What are the worst injuries you've ever seen?

Bryan: You know, I have actual patients to see to. Some of us can't sit around all day answering fucking inane questions.

Wright: Was it Nate Fick?

Bryan: Now see, that sounds like you already know the answer. So, my question to you is why you're asking me questions that you already know the answers to. I'm done. [Bryan leaves the room]

-

Brad is an expert at avoiding people he doesn't want to talk to. His personal record for avoiding non-Ray individuals is three weeks, back when Wynn needed to tell him he was scrapping Whiskey Tango. He can avoid Ray for significantly smaller periods of time; the kid's been inside his head, it's hard avoiding someone like that.

It's his twentieth day of avoiding Nate, and he's inside Devil Dog's chest cavity, welding, not hiding, when Carizalez scrambles up beside him, blinking at him guiltily under his goggles. 'Boss wants to see you, dude.' Brad mutters darkly under his breath and keeps welding. 'Uh, says if you don't come down, he's coming up, and if he gets oil on his suit, your life won't be worth living.' Brad swears, and switches the torch off, flipping the mask up and climbing down as slowly as he can without being dragged into Wynn's office for another Conversation, capital C, about insubordination and attitude to a superior officer. When he reaches the bottom, he wipes his hands on the rag in his pocket and hands his torch and mask off to Baptista, who wrinkles his nose before making his way back up the Jaeger. Brad turns around, looks past Nate at first because he's expecting Wynn, but then his gaze drags back. He's wearing a suit, pale grey with a white shirt and no tie, and Brad's struck for just a second about how good he looks in it before he realises that Carizalez is making his escape up the calf of Femme Fatale to the scaffolding on the knee joint, and Brad shouts after him 'You're a fucking traitor, Dirty. I hope the money was worth a slow, painful death!'

When he turns back round, Nate is smirking. 'You know, contrary to popular opinion, I have a shitton of things to do today, or did you forget we're working double time to build your Jaeger?'

'Our Jaeger.' Nate says, and he's really smiling now, wide and earnest and Brad hates him. _Hates_  him.

'Oh yeah?' Brad says, and walks off, sticking a cigarette in his mouth and heading away from the small crowd that's pretending not to be listening to the conversation.

'Mike hasn't spoken to you yet?' It takes Brad a second to guess who Mike is, and then he snorts, because of course Nate is on first name terms with their boss.

'See aforementioned comment about being so fucking busy I haven't eaten since Tuesday.' Nate looks at him then, and Brad has an almost uncontrollable urge to shuffle his feet.

'Wynn wants us co piloting the new Assassin Sierra.'

'No.' The word is out of his mouth before Nate has even finished his sentence.

He looks at Brad like Brad's a fucking retard. 'But-' he starts, and Brad cuts him off.

'So we're drift compatible. That was going to be your argument, right? I'm aware. Trust me. I was on the mats too. We still don't know how the neural handshake will take, if it even will. I-' Brad stops himself there, because he suddenly realises the next sentence is going to be 'I don't want to hurt you' and he's not touching that with one of Femme Fatale's twenty foot sword attachments.

'You haven't seen the scores,' Nate says, taking a step forward, and he's already too close for Brad to be entirely comfortable. 'They're off the fucking chart, Brad. Mike's never seen drift scores like this. I've never seen scores like this. And that fight. I don't understand how you're still fighting this. It was more than textbook, it was...' Nate pauses. 'The last time I felt like that in testing, it was with my mother. And I'm willing to bet everything I own that you haven't felt like that since Person.'

Brad wants to take a step back, to increase the distance between him and Nate, but he knows it's conceding, and he won't admit surrender, so he stays where he is, says 'None of it matters if either of us end up chasing the rabbit,' and he really tries to mean it, when what he wants to say is 'okay', is 'I'll drift with you', and the worst fucking part is that he doesn't know _why._ He doesn't know why he cares, doesn't know why he should care, and he's never tried so hard not to care, but Nate is still standing in front of him in his suit, with that earnest expression on his face like he can make Brad trust him if only he says the right buzzwords.

'I can't,' is all he says before he flees back to the bay, and he can't even pretend its a strategic retreat. It's a goddamn surrender, and Nate knows it too.

-

Wright: It must be hard, running the biggest Shatterdome in the world.

Wynn: There are easier jobs, I'm sure. 

Wright: Whats the hardest part of your job?

Wynn: Keeping track of fifteen Jaeger pilots, each with a Jaeger sized ego.

Wright: Marshal Ferrando [based in Anchorage] says it's not unlike teaching an unruly Kindergarten class.

Wynn: [laughing] There are similarities, I won't lie. But it has its perks.

Wright: Such as?

Wynn: Being the front line of the resistance. Saving the world. [grin] The occasional piloting run isn't so bad, either.

-

Four weeks after the first double event, it happens again. Devil Dog is back and functional, but Femme Fatale is still grounded, so Yankee Noir and Dharmic Fury get sent out as back up to Hunter Alpha.

Only two Jaegers come back, limping and bleeding, broken joints creaking, and when Brad gets a look at Hunter Alpha, he finds out that the only thing keeping her together was sheer willpower. Patterson's still unconscious, a week later. Rudy and Pappy are battered but still standing, barely, and Kocher's prowling around medical with a broken wrist. It's only a matter of time before Bryan either kicks him out or finishes the job. Ray has a betting pool going, but no one seems to be particularly enthusiastic about it.

Yankee Noir died in the middle of the ocean. Brad looks at the empty bay where she used to stand, flanked by the empty Femme Fatale and the crippled Dharmic Fury and has to turn away. Of the seven Jaegers California was boasting six months ago, one is dead, two are crippled, and two are half-pilotless. The bays are as busy as ever, but Brad can't help but think that they're losing this war. He starts spending eighteen hours a day working, running various repairs in between checking up on the pilots in medical, updating them on their Jaegers, dragging the ones that shouldn't be there out before Doc kills them all, stopping in to see Walt for new designs, trading blueprints, and explaining to Stafford that he understands that Hitman Screwby needs a weapons system upgrade, but that she's so far down the list that the war will probably be over by the time he gets round to filing the paperwork. 'There are Jaegers in there that can't stand on their own two feet without their pilots keeping them there, Evan,' he says, trying not to sound harsh but pretty sure he's failing, because Stafford looks at him, mutters 'Screwby' and stalks off. Brad sighs, rubs at his forehead with an oil smeared hand and isn't even surprised when it comes away dirtier than before.

And then it happens again. Wynn drafts some math genius teenager from MIT who scribbles on chalkboards and complains about having to share a space with Ray 'Kaiju Blue' Person, who takes great delight in leaving guts and on one memorable occasion, genitalia, on this Trombley kid's desk. Ray makes the very valid argument that really, it's only part of a Kaiju dick, but Wynn still reads him the riot act and doesn't let Ray talk his way out of it while Walt pulls faces in the background. Trombley bitches and moans and drinks all the coffee, but he's smart, and he throws together some kind of algorithm that predicts Kaiju attacks, only he missed one.

And now there are only two sets of pilots gearing up, and Brad has the sinking feeling that neither of them will be coming home. Rudy makes a plea to Wynn to let them take Dharmic Fury out, but she's only barely functional, and Brad knows that sending her out will mean Rudy and Pappy definitely not coming home. Nate is there, arguing quietly with Wynn, who throws his hands in the air and glances at Brad before heading for Loccent, and Brad takes a pretty good guess as to what they were arguing about.

'Gear up, Brad.' Nate doesn't pose it as a question, and he's gone before Brad has time to argue, so he follows him up to the room the drift suits are kept in.

'I can't.'

'Why not?' Nate sounds almost conversational, and Brad thinks about how much easier it would be if he hated the bastard.

'You know why.'

'No, Brad, I don't. I know that we're drift compatible. I know you're a fucking good pilot, and I know that if we send Devil Dog and Hitman Screwby out there alone, they're all going to die.'   He doesn't sound conversational anymore, and his eyes are dark. 'This is no longer about you being scared, Colbert. This is fucking life or death, and I'm done treating you like you're special. Get in the fucking Jaeger. Either we drift, or they die, and we all lose this war. What would you rather die doing, Colbert? Fighting, or hiding?'

Brad had almost forgotten what it was like, strapping into the suit. He thought it might feel different, knowing that this isn't a simulation, that he hasn't set foot in even a sim for six years, that Ray isn't his co-pilot. Nate had left him behind, going ahead to run the start up for Assassin Sierra, and Brad thinks vaguely that he expects Brad to bolt, to run and hide. 'Second pilot heading up,' he tells one of the tech guys, who nods and passes it up the wire, and he grabs the helmet, hooks it on, and heads into the conn-pod.

Nate is elbow deep in a panel when Brad steps on board, and he doesn't even look around when yet another tech guy shouts about the second pilot. Brad is heading for the left footplate when Nate turns around, and almost manages to mask the surprise in his eyes. He grins, and removes his arm from the panel. 'I'll take the left side, if you don't mind. My right arm is fucked.'

Brad nods, shifts to the other footplate, and he's about to strap himself in when Nate speaks again. 'You look good, Brad.'

Brad has no idea what to do with that, so he steps into the footplate and flicks the comms to check in with Wynn.

Wynn gives them their orders and then they're fifteen seconds away from the neural handshake, and the countdown is filtering through the speakers, tinny.

'Remember, they're just memories,' Nate says. 'Let them drift past. Don't chase the rabbit. Stay with me, Brad.'

Brad nods, terse, and then the world goes silent and just slightly blue. He sees his own memories at first, his mother and father, his sister, graduating high school. He sees Ray, and he knows Nate does too. And then Nate's memories start drifting over. Brad sees Emma Fick, and not a lot else. He sees Kaiju and feels Nate's fear, and suddenly it's all too much. It's all he can see, and he can hear Nate in the distance shouting his name, but it's drowned out by alarms blaring, by a younger looking Nate screaming for his mother, strapped into a half torn apart Jaeger. There's so much fire. That's what Brad really focuses on; the fire, and the screech of the Kaiju. He's standing next to the hole in the Jaeger's head, and he watches Nate slump in his rig, before tilting his head up. There's a set to his jaw that Brad's seen before, and he stands straight, even as the flames curl over his suit. He  takes one slow, agonising step, and then another, and he's in so much pain Brad can't look at him. He doesn't need to. Brad can _feel_  him. He's shattered, barely keeping it together. _For mom,_ he's thinking. _For her._

'Brad _.'_  He barely hears it, over everything else, but he turns at the sound of his name, and he sees a second Nate behind the first one. 'It's not real,' he's saying, 'none of this is. It's a memory, it's my memory. Stay with me, Brad. We're so close.'

The Kaiju shrieks again, and Brad can't breathe, and Nate is closer, is right there, one hand on Brad's shoulder, another on his forearm. Brad can feel the warmth under his suit. 'Come on, Brad,' he says. 'This isn't real. Come back.' He rests his forehead against Brad's, and the helmets clack together gently. Brad thinks about how green his eyes are. He closes his own eyes, and suddenly, the Kaiju fades. The alarm is still blaring, and Nate's not touching him anymore, but he takes a look around, knows that _this_  is real. Wynn is shouting at him over the comms, but Nate reaches up to flip a switch and says 'we're back,' terse and sharp, but he's looking at Brad with soft worry.

'Fick, what the fuck is going on over there?'

'Nothing, we're fine. Brad went out of alignment, it knocked me off too, we're back though, we're ready for the drop.'

Wynn doesn't sound convinced, but he says 'drop in thirty' and then nothing. Brad concentrates on his breathing and doesn't think about what he saw. When he can concentrate fully on the here and now, he closes his eyes and realises he's drifting. He didnt throw Nate out, and this is what it felt like with Ray, he thinks, except everything's new. With Ray, he already knew everything. Nate might as well be a stranger to him, judging by how familiar the inside of his head is. He glances over at Nate, who's grinning, just a little bit, and then they drop. He doesn't realise he's laughing until he hears Nate laughing too, and Brad wonders if maybe they're both a little unhinged, but then they land, and he feels his consciousness spread down, and he feels a hundred feet tall. The sensor in his hand buzzes to life, and he flexes his fingers and feels another set flex, fifty feet below.

_You ready?_ Nate's in his head, and that means they don't need to talk out loud, Brad realises. He nods, and in sync, they raise their arms, and far below, he feels the pull of a hundred tons of steel muscle, and thinks that this is where he's meant to be.

-

Wright: How different is it, piloting a Jaeger to killing Kaiju in a simulation?

Fick: It's like the difference between shooting bullets and shooting blanks. It doesn't really feel any different technically, but out there it's a world of difference. Sometimes you catch yourself acting as if it is a sim, or a video game. It's scary, that it's that easy to disconnect from what you're doing.

-

The Kaiju go down about as easy as they usually do, from what Brad's seen, and Assassin holds her own pretty well, mostly surface damage, but they almost lose Devil Dog again. It's not their fault, Brad just thinks they need to adjust to not having Poke calling the shots, and everyone survives, all the Jaegers are still functional when they return. It's the best ending to a deployment in over a year, and people applaud when all three Jaegers return triumphant. 

Brad doesn't realise he's on the brink of collapse until he disconnects from Assassin and then from Nate, and his knees give out as soon as he steps off the plate. Nate's at his side in a second, and there's that warmth again, Brad thinks vaguely, before he's preoccupied with what Doc Bryan later tells him is a full fledged panic attack. 'Quite frankly, Colbert, I'm surprised you didn't go full psycho in the Jaeger after how spectacularly you chased the rabbit,' he says, gives Brad two small pink pills, calls him a fucking moron and then kicks him out of medical with strict orders to eat something high in sugar and sleep for at least eight hours.

Brad nods and takes the pills and then uses wilful misinterpretation to head to the bay to see Assassin and, presumably, Nate. He gets halfway there when he catches Nate coming out of Wynn's office, exhausted but ready for a fight, looks like. When he sees Brad something in him deflates and he smiles, but he still looks like he's going to fall over.

Brad doesn't mean to kiss him, but it still happens, sliding a hand into the dip at the base of Nate's neck as he softens into it, kisses him back and slowly, he backs Nate against a wall and tugs at his lower lip with his teeth. Nate's not small, but Brad has at least four inches of height on him, and broader shoulders, so he brackets him into a corner and slips his other hand over Nate's throat, thumb and forefinger brushing the edges of his jaw.

When they part, Nate smiles and says 'you make me feel alive again,' and then looks very much like he regrets it immediately, tightening his grip on Brad's waist and kissing him again.

They end up in Brad's room, with its unmade bed and low ceiling, with Brad on his back and Nate on his knees between Brad's legs. Brad's hands fist in the crumpled sheets when Nate hollows his cheeks, and he knows he probably shouldn't be thinking about Ray at this exact moment in time, but as much as he had fun with Ray, Nate is spectacularly talented in this area, more so than the last guy to suck Brad's dick. Brad chooses not to think about how long ago that was, and concentrates on moaning Nate's name when he hollows his cheeks and Brad hits the back of his throat. It's over embarrassingly fast, and the corner of Nate's mouth is tilted upwards when he rises to his feet gracefully, rubbing at his swollen lower lip with the pad of his thumb. Brad swallows and widens his legs slightly. Nate smiles properly then, wolfish and sharp, and when he kisses Brad, there's still the faint taste of bitterness, and Brad pushes his tongue into Nate's mouth. He pulls away long enough to say 'top drawer,' and then he's about to close the gap again when Nate pulls away completely, sitting up where he straddles Brad's waist. Brad looks Nate up and down, and almost says something, before he catches himself. Nate's torso is a maze of scars, thin white lines that criss cross over yards of shiny burn marks, and Brad thinks things like _seventy percent_  and _first_ _degree_ , and it's not until Nate starts talking again that Brad's back. He realises that Nate doesn't care, isn't ashamed, and if Nate doesn't care, then Brad isn't going to mention it. He does run one hand up Nate's stomach, over the worst of the burns, and tries to tell Nate he's sorry without actually saying anything. Nate puts his own hand over the top of Brad's and he doesn't say anything either, but Brad thinks they both understand each other.

'Roll over. Hands and knees.' His voice is rough and raw, but Brad finds himself obeying, and thinks about Nate in a uniform and giving orders for all of seven seconds, before there's the icy slick of lube as Nate pushes a finger inside him. If Brad was thinking clearly, he'd probably be appalled at the sounds he was making, arching his back and curling his toes as Nate adds another finger, but all he can really do is whine and push back on Nate's fingers, words like _please_  and _fuck_ and _Nate_ dropping out of his mouth. Nate adds another finger, stretching him almost to the point of pain and Brad stops talking, just for a second, as Nate presses a kiss to the small of Brad's back and almost kills the moment when he breathes 'are we going to talk about the tattoo?' over Brad's hot skin.

'Later,' Brad gets out, and then, 'please, Nate, _fuck me_.' He feels Nate smiling into his skin and then the pressure inside him is gone. Brad hears the crinkling of a condom packet, but when he turns his head to look, Nate swats at him with a grin, and he turns back round. Nate's bigger than Brad would have thought, and it's almost uncomfortable. When all of him is inside Brad, he pauses, just for a couple of seconds. Brad shifts, wriggles his hips and pushes up at Nate, who slaps at his flank gently with the flat of his hand, and pulls out slowly before slamming back in and forcing a whine out of Brad. Brad finds out that Nate is a talker, that he keeps up a steady stream of filth while he fucks Brad to incoherency.

Brad feels Nate coming before he hears him, feels the hands curved around his hips tighten their grip, feels him start to shake before he chokes out a sound and one of his hands reaches round to jerk Brad off roughly as he comes, _B_ _rad_  being punched out of him by his orgasm. Brad stays on his hands and knees, but only just, as Nate drapes himself across his back, lips pressed to the nape of his neck. He's smiling again, lazily; Brad can feel it.

Nate pulls out and rolls over, disposes the condom in the bin and heaves himself off the narrow bed to the small sink in the corner. He tosses a damp washcloth at Brad, who hisses when it hits him as he's rolling onto his back. He cleans himself up half heartedly and throws it back, aiming for the sink and missing. Nate snatches it out of midair and drops it in the sink before draping himself over Brad's bare chest.

'You did well today,' he murmurs, tilting his head up to look at Brad.

Brad smirks. 'I try.' Nate prods him in the side, but Brad is the least ticklish person in existence, so he just prods Nate back. 'It could have gone better.'

'It could have gone a whole lot worse. Everyone came home. Take the win, Brad.'

Brad pulls a face. Nate slaps at him again, and it devolves quickly until they end up with Brad lying half on top of Nate, pinning him down gently. Nate submits with a grin and curls up again, and is asleep almost immediately, taking up a good ninety percent of Brad's bed. Brad feels like he should probably be offended, but he thinks about what Doc told him, and he just sprawls where he can and sleeps, vowing to murder the person who wakes him in the morning. He makes a bet with himself that it's Person, and then he's asleep. For the first time in a long time, he doesn't dream at all.

-

Wright: When you met your husband, was there any thought to maybe piloting with him? It's a pretty strong bond, there are a lot of married co-pilots.

Espera, G: Not really. We try to keep all that out of the marriage. When we're out of the suits, it's just us and our daughter. Tony calls it a Kaiju free zone. Besides, if I piloted with Tony, where would that leave Zoe?

Wright: You two are half sisters, right? What made you decide to drift together?

Mendes: We actually signed up independant of each other. It was a fucking surprise when we found each other in basic training. 

Espera, G: After that, it was kind of inevitable. Zoe's flexible, she can drift with most people, but for me, it really came down to her or no one.

Mendes: She's my best friend. It just made sense, you know? I know a lot of people don't get along with half siblings, or step siblings or whatever, but we're the same age, and it had been us against the world since we were like five. We figured why fix something that ain't broken?

-

Brad wakes up naturally, which is the first thing that surprises him. He has a code locking his door, but he gave up trying to keep Ray out of his shit two decades ago, and he rarely gets to wake up of his own accord these days. The second thing that surprises him is that Nate is still here, starfished across the whole bed with his mouth slightly open. Brad rolls off the bed and dresses, splashing water over his face. He leaves before Nate is awake, goes straight to Wynn's office and leaves with a mountain of paperwork, and permission to draw up plans for a new Jaeger. Nate is still asleep when he gets back in, so he spreads it all out on Ray's old bed and starts sketching. Nate sleeps for another hour or so, and by the time he's awake enough to register what Brad's doing, there's the basic shape of a Jaeger drawn out on parchment paper. 'What are you doing?' Nate asks, interrupted by a yawn halfway through as he pads over to peer over Brad's shoulder.

'If we're going to be co-pilots, we need a brand new Jaeger. Stop carrying your mother's ghost around.' 

Nate looks at him like Brad hung the moon, and Brad flushes and scrambles through the papers around him. 'Co-pilot forms. Wynn says sign em, date em, bring em back and they'll be effective from tomorrow.' Nate takes the forms, flips through them and puts them on the desk by the bed before nudging Brad into moving up so he can slide into the bed next to him 'What are we calling her?' he says. Brad glances round from where he's scribbling a note to Walt on the design.

'Don't look at me. I designed her, you can name her.'

Nate nods and says nothing, just climbs off the bed, dresses silently and bends over the desk to scribble his signature and the date on the bottom of the forms. 'Yours are already signed?' he says, flicking through again. 

'I figured if you didn't want to co-pilot, I'd just shred the forms and we'd go our separate ways, no harm done.' Brad doesn't look up from the designs as he's speaking, but suddenly there's a weight on the bed again, and Nate nudges at his chin, making him look up. He presses a long kiss to Brad's lips, pulling away before Brad has a chance to deepen it. 

'You're an idiot,' Nate says softly, inches away from Brad. 'I'm going to file these with Mike. I'll be back in ten minutes. Put the pencil down, Brad.'

Brad swallows and half-grins. 'Is that an order?'

Nate kisses him again, just enough tongue to convince Brad that shutting up is in his best interests. 'I can make it one.'

-

Wright: Was there ever any hesitation between the two of you?

Fick: Not on my part. Not after we knew we were compatible, anyway. It made sense, having the two best pilots in the same Jaeger. Brad was wasted in engineering.

Colbert: I liked engineering. Simpler times.

Wright: Both of you were used to having someone else as your co-pilot, especially you, Ranger Fick. Was that a particularly big hurdle to get over?

Colbert: Not as big as I thought.

Fick: Brad and my mother were, are, very different people. Once you get over the initial bumps, it's a whole new experience. It's almost like starting from scratch. I think we both needed it.

Wright: Hence the new Jaeger. 

Fick: [nods] Hence the new Jaeger.

-

She's beautiful, Brad thinks, looking up at her. Half a billion dollars went into building her, and she's worth every penny. It's the dead hour between three and four am and the bay isn't empty, because it never is, but it's empty enough that Brad likes to climb to a low platform and just look at her, half constructed, except now she's finished.

And then the alarm goes off, and Wynn comes up over the bay comms. 'Kaijuu detected five miles off the coast, deploy Femme Fatale, Hunter Alpha, Bravo Prometheus.' Brad grins, stubs out his cigarette and jumps the seven feet to the bay floor.

Nate is half asleep when he stumbles into the suit room, but he strips down to the undersuit in double time. Brad has already been screwed into his, and he wipes at the glass of his helmet. Nate suits up and the tech guy passes it up the wire just as Gina and Zoe tumble into the room, followed just after by a half dressed Patterson and a murderous looking Kocher. Brad is pretty sure Kocher always looks murderous though, so he just salutes them lazily and follows Nate out into the corridor to head for Bravo. It's her maiden voyage, and the rechristening of both Hunter and Femme Fatale, and the corridors are buzzing with people wanting to see the most advanced Jaeger's first party. 

Just before they step into Bravo, Nate catches Brad by the elbow and they rest their foreheads together with a clack of the glass getting in the way, just like they did in Nate's memory, four months ago. 'You ready, kid?' Nate says, smirking, and Brad whacks him on the arm as they separate and head into their Jaeger. The footplates rise up for them, and just as they're stepping into them, Brad says 'Let's get this Kaiju motherfucker,' just in time for their comms to come online, and he broadcasts it to everyone in Loccent. Nate laughs, and Bravo powers up, and Wynn starts the countdown to the neural handshake. Brad thinks, looking over at Nate as he starts running system double checks, that this is what he's spent the last seven years training for. This exact moment, just as the world goes silent and blue.

-

Wright: So, why did you become a pilot in the first place?

Fick: It kind of felt like the right thing to do, you know? We were at war. My mom was signing up, in those days they only took people who already had a relationship, my sister was pregnant and my dad failed the preliminary physical [Sebastian Fick was born missing three fingers on his right hand]. She was always saying we should do more together, so we flew out to Alaska. They were the only US shatterdome back then, and mom was one of those people who doesn't want to waste any time, so seven months after she decided she wanted to do this, we were drawing up plans for Assassin Sierra.

Wright: Has the PPDC changed much since you joined up?

Fick: It's a lot bigger, for sure. And I think it's a lot more long term, obviously. Rangers have a longer life expectancy now, despite the increase in Kaiju attacks. Back then, I think people expected the war to be over by Christmas, you know? There was a lot more self sacrifice, a lot more eagerness for one big push to defeat the enemy once and for all. Nowadays, people are more resigned that this probably isn't stopping any time soon. People know they're in this for life, they have families to get back to. That's another difference. A lot of people who signed up back then, their co-pilot was all they had. It's a very... Overwhelming experience, for people who aren't used to it. You get attached, sometimes overly so. It's difficult to feel like there's someone else in the world after your first real drift.

**Author's Note:**

> LBR, all this made me want was to write more fics in this verse. Sequel, anyone?


End file.
